Roger II of Sicily

Roger II inherited the County of Sicily in 1105 as a boy, added the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, and in 1130 convinced an antipope to crown him King of Sicily — the first king on the Italian peninsula in three centuries. By 1148 he'd taken enough of North Africa to style himself King of Africa. He ran a court in three languages, minted gold like Byzantium, and built a state apparatus that survived him by a century.